The End of an Era: A Reflection
by python862
Summary: Solid Snake finds that in the final moments, the ones that matter most, he can look back at everything and find solace in the memories over the years; finding peace even in the quote of a friend from long ago. Oneshot, Snake's POV.


A/N: Well, I see everywhere in the Metal Gear archives many accounts of Snake's death, but not one made from his own perspective. Here's my attempt to remedy that, in a bit of a reflection piece. Here's my homage to the death of a legend; my homage to the end of an era.

**The End of an Era**

I drank too much. I knew that when the pain became more like background noise in a sea of static, rather than an overbearing alarm blaring everywhere within my senses.

I smoked too much. That one I realized when I became entirely too calm and resigned into myself about it all. It didn't come through my acceptance of my position, but instead through mass amounts of nicotine and a small bit of willpower.

I cared much too little. I realized it when I was able to deflect Otacon's worried questioning with a simple shrug. I felt bad about the way I was treating him, but I knew I couldn't change that. It would only make his plight harder for the trouble after it all went down.

It seemed like anything I did in recent days and weeks came in blatant excesses or meek lacking. It was all I could actually bare to do just to remain breathing through it all. And then, even then, came the short times of sobriety from both biggest addictions. The pain became a constant, overpowering creature, threatening my life at every thump of my ever-weakening heart. The thoughts I had in those times were always unordered and frantic attempts to gain my senses through blurred vision and intense sound, brought on by the pain. It was always inescapable, though. Nothing I did could bring me any farther away from what I tried dealing with. And then the memories would come. Memories of old days within which I became quickly lost, wading waist-deep within the waters of the terrible things I forced myself to do day after day, week after week. Waters that were constantly being dammed up. Waters that were constantly breaking free. The physical anguish I tried to overcome was absolutely nothing compared to the mental suffering I put myself through when I lost myself to the days past.

Of course I knew that my fight against my own damned body was a losing one, but I could never force myself to lay back and admit it, let it consume me. I would never allow myself an exit unless I could allow it under my own terms. I would always try and beat the pain down using a bottle of whiskey and my old, haggard and worn hands, for as long as I still could. And even if I wasn't fighting for myself for a change, I would fight for those who care for me.

Huh. I never thought of exactly how that would sound, after living for so long with only myself to trust, living as a hellbound killing machine with nothing better to do with my days. I suppose I actually like it. It has a nice ring to it.

It's funny and ironic at the very same time how through all these years, I have been searching and searching for that one bullet, that one stray grenade that would end me; and in the end it was the very thing that had saved my ass day after day, the experience of battle that was never truly my own, that would do me in and make me finally kick the bucket after years of a hellish fog. That very fog I lost myself in while on a mission, striving for that last objective and sprinting through to the finish after miles without rest, with only two requests: a pack of menthols and a gun.

That very same fog that had suddenly broken after meeting that insane and weird engineer, Otacon. Hah, the origins of the name may not be something after my own interests, but hell if it's name that I haven't overused. And since I met him, he's clung to me like a toddler to his mother. It's one of those things that I find amusing and sobering at the same time; amusing because he's never really found his own two feet, but sobering because I was that one last bastion between him and insanity. I was the one who took his one and only love within Shadow Moses, rationalizing it with the fact that she had been one of my objectives, and that I would never abandon any of my objectives, for any reason. I was the one who couldn't help the only relative that he still cared about. And yet I remained there, a reminder of the people he's lost. The replacement for everyone.

But since that time, he's found a new friend. A new soul to try and lighten his burden, and it came in the form of an innocent young girl. Sunny was always a bright spot in my days as well, coming to my side day by day, even if I was drunk and despondent. She always had that twinkle in her eyes of a knowledge that I wasn't alright, and that I probably wouldn't make it through to the next day, but she would stay there anyway, keeping me company in my loneliest and darkest times to date. She was a sweet young soul that I knew that I would dearly miss, even if I knew I could never even dare to tell her. Or anyone else for that matter.

Coughing fits became regular events, as if they were a reminder that I was dying. Sometimes blood would spew out, and sometimes it wouldn't. They took a while to get used to, and even now I doubted that I ever would become accustomed to them.

It was in those times that I remembered the dying words of someone that I truly respect, even to this day. He was always looking for that escape, the one thing that would finally take him out of the world he had been forced to enter, time and time again, against his will. I had tried to comprehend them when I had first heard them, but their meaning had escaped me. But now, I see exactly what the man had meant, but it took the struggle to retain my own life to truly see.

The day it happened, the words kept replaying themselves over and over again, every time a new pang of pain hit me. The pain was more unbearable than anything I had faced before, but it wasn't the pain that hit me the most. It was the significance of the words, and how true they were.

After the painful spasms, I finally rested peacefully, lying in bed with only Otacon and Sunny to soothe me. I felt my consciousness being torn away viciously, but I staved it off for those final moments. The final moments that I could ever spend with the people that I cared enough for to call… family. As the final breath rasped out, I remember repeating the phrase that had plagued me as I lay in bed all those days. The words that the man everyone called Gray Fox – the man I had the pleasure of calling Frank – had said. Otacon and Sunny listened intently, with tears streaming down their faces.

_"Fighting was the only thing I was good at. The only thing… but at least I always fought for what I believed in. With this, now it can finally end."_

* * *

A/N: Well… it may not have turned out as I expected it to… I dunno. But, the news I told you all about earlier is this: I have spoken with Solid Snake's Soldier, and she has agreed to allow me to do a Snake's perspective view on _Simple and Clean_. I'm looking forward to having that out to you all soon, but until then;

Be Happy - Python


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